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Friday, April 15, 2011

What's Sachin Tendulkar off the field?

When he's not out on the field punishing the other team for leaving home, Sachin Tendulkar's interests have very little to do with the game of cricket. CNBC-TV18's Tanvi Shukla reports on what makes this god of cricket really tick.

With the world cup victory, Sachin Tendulkar has reinforced his mark in sporting history but this hero of Indian cricket was inspired by a villain. "That character Gabbar had an impact," he said.

Such an impact, that Sachin even dressed up as Gabbar during a team-building exercise. So is this form of entertainment something he'd like to pursue?

"I have been offered many times, but whenever that has happened, I have only thought about cricket and nothing else. Even last year something happened but I haven’t really thought about it," he said.

Clearly, he's more than happy just watching movies. "I must have watch Sholay a number of time. I enjoy watching light-hearted movies like 3 idiots, Hera Pheri, Munna Bhai, where you can start from anywhere and you still enjoy it," Sachin said.

Of course, sports' movies like Lagaan, Chak De and Rocky rank among his all-time favorites, but only as motivational tools. So would he watch a movie on India's Worldcup victory? "I've never thought about that," he said. "The whole experience of lifting the trophy was incredible. It is something you always dream about and when it happens, you don’t know how to react. All the players had happy tears in the middle and it is something that never happened to the team. It was a very touching moment for all of us," the god of cricket iterates.

And to deal with the stress that comes of being an Indian cricketer, Sachin says he prefers music. "The song that I have recently been listening to a lot is Where the Streets Have No Name by U2."

But these are just temporary escape routes. For Sachin everything is around cricket. "If anything else threatens to become a distraction then I avoid that. Your whole existence is about cricket so nothing should distract you from that," he added.